Fodor's may use your email address to send you relevant information on site updates, account changes, and offers. For more information about your privacy and protection, please review our full Privacy Policy.

Air travel between European countries- a huge hassle?

We are booked to be in London this spring and would like to take a few days and see another country. Initially we thought we would chunnel to Paris, and still might, but wanted to explore other options. Seems like there are a lot of options for inter-european travel- quick, inexpensive flights.But, is customs in europe like that in the US- a huge hassle and long lines? Specifically thinking Barcelone or Venice. We haven't ruled out paris and it does seem that the chunnel is easier than flying, but would like to weigh all our options. TIA

First I think you are confusing Immigration (entry of people) and Customs (entry of luggage).

For amost anyplace in europe Customs is a non-issue - one just picks up oe bag and walks through the green (nothing to declare door). The only wait is for checked luggage.

However the UK is NOT part of Schengen - so one does have to go through Immigration to enter France, Spain and other countries. How long the wait at Immigration is a function of how many international flights land at the same time,

(For taking the Eurostar from London to Paris one must arrive early at the station and go through Immigration and customs before boarding the train.)

We were in London a few years ago and took the chunnel to Paris - great travel experience - we made reservations weeks earlier and had assigned seats - the London train station was a wonderful experience as well.

TIP - don't take pepperspay with you - long imitating delay from the nice London Bobbys!

" there are a lot of options for inter-european travel- quick, inexpensive flights."

ALL flying in Europe is substantially nastier than getting a train. Customs is a non-issue everywhere in the EU and EFTA, and not just between the Schengen countries. Immigration procedures are almost identical whether you're on a train, a plane, a ferry or cross-border bus : they don't happen at all between the Schengen countries: but can cause border delays between Schengen and non-Schengen (for most tourists, that essentially means getting to and from the UK)

These, though, are trivial compared to the problems of security. Virtually ALL embarking passengers on every plane go through it, however often they've been through security earlier on in the journey: it's almost unheard of on trains (and thoroughly unintrusive and efficient on the rare occasions, like international trains to and from London, that it happens.)

Also all airports are in the middle of nowhere. They also generally have rotten - by European standards - public transport links (unbelievably, most passengers using almost every airport in Europe outside the London area travel to it by car or taxi) while railway stations are almost always in city centres with highly complex and efficient public transport connections throughout their conurbations.

As a result, for most city to city connections under 400 miles, trains usually work out faster than planes door to door, and for most connections under 800 miles they're comfier, though slower. Even then, they may offer a more effective use of time: you can work, think, write or look at scenery far more in a 10-hour train journey than in the constant stops, starts, queues and interrogations of a five plane-based trip.

Self-evidently therefore, low-cost airlines mostly compete by reducing their prices, at least for advance booking, to levels below the train. They're therefore widely used by people to whom price matters more than time or comfort.

That generalisation is a HUGE generalisation though. If you want to optimise a specific connection, you need to check which alternative meets YOUR needs for price, lack of hassle and convenience. And there's never any point taking a plane plus train journey when it's possible to do it all by plane.

Incidentally "chunnel" is a silly journalistic invention, now used only by Americans. Using it makes you sound as naive a believer in trite travel-scribbler cliches as someone calling New York "the Big Apple" in a serious conversation.

London City Airport has some interesting destinations, and is much quicker to get through than the larger London airports. Not as cheap as Ryanair, but it saves you a train ride to Stansted.
Have a look at Cityjet's destinations from London City.

Addendum to Flanner's post. Almost all European airports used by cheap airlines are in the middle of nowhere. Those serving most major cities and legacy airlines have excellent public transport links, very often vastly superior to Heathrow or other London airports.
Flying is as much a pain in Europe as anywhere, with security, immigration and just getting to and from the airport, but if you want to visit somewhere other than Paris, Lille or Brussels flying is almost the only option from London. You could get the train and ferry to Amsterdam for instance, but that takes a long time.

I have flown Paris London. Bad idea, even to make a connection at Heathrow. Just less bad than the other options at the time.

I did it because in my youthful simplicity, I did not know enough about open-jaw flights into one place and home from another.

For Paris-Edinburgh and Paris-Marseille or Paris-Nice, flying makes sense. They are beyond the 400 mile limit. Paris-London by Eurostar is absurdly easy because both terminals are right in the middle of everything.

I would try to arrange my trip so that either Paris or London comes at the end of my trip, and I would fly into one and home from the other, not making a loop.

We have flown from Gatwick and Luton to places such as Budapest , Prague and from Ljubljana and Dubrovnik back to those airports. Also from Madrid to Manchester on BA. We catch trains to Luton and Gatwick , fly Easy jet . Only once have we had long lines and that was coming back thru Luton at immigration .
Eurostar to Paris and from Bruges - good travelling

Thanks for all the replies and for the reprimand of using chunnel - as a verb or as a noun. Won't do that again...

Price is not a factor but time is. We would like to fit in one other major city on this relatively short trip. Taking the train to Paris seems like the most logical thing to do, but it is tempting to take a quick flight to barcelona . But that quick flight becomes not so quick once you factor in airport wait time and customs and immigration perhaps. Are the rules for flying in europe similar to that of the US- get to the airport an hour and a half to 2 hours prior?

If you have only handluggage, one hour in advance is fine. Even less when flying from London City Airport.

For the Eurostar you'll need to get there at least 45 minutes early for passport control and security. But of course once you get to Paris, you're in the center of town with no more passport control or customs.

Security lines can be very long and some of the budget airlines have long and VERY strict check in times - they simply cancel your ticket if you're late. Some alos have VERY strict luggage restrictions (one tiny carry-on item only - no extra purse of camera bag - and expensive and limited checked luggage as well).

Not sure what you would take London to Barcelona - have never flown that route.

So I would check with the airline you choose to get their specific rules for that flight. Do NOT assume one hour will be enough.

I do it all the time, I don't know why you are referring to "customs" which is for when you return home. It's more like flying in the US between states. No, it's not a huge hassle, anymore than flying usually is but if you are flying between smaller cities with smaller airports, it's not that big a deal (which is what I often do).

Many airports of cheaper airlines are not in unusual areas at all, as most smaller cities only have one airport. Barcelona, for example, which you mention only has one and it is easy to get into the city from it. That is one airport I've flown to/from within Europe.

All airlines have strick checkin times, it seems to me, yes, I would suggest you get there in time. I was talking to some guy a few weeks ago complaining about how his son was barred from boarding a Southwest flight in COlumbus Ohio because "he was only five minutes after the boarding had stopped". That's the way it goes, there are times for a reason.

Security lines are never long at smaller airports, it's not that possible.

Christina, by customs, i mean immigration. Like when i come home to JFK or LAX from out of the country- it's a long ordeal. wondering if that was the case inter-europe- i.e. london to barcelone? Flying between states in the us you get off the plane and get your luggage- i can't imagine it is that easy in europe, from country to country- is it?

One of the big reasons that passport control lines are so often interminably long at JFK and LAX is that they are point-of-entry hubs for people connecting to other flights within the US. Most people flying in Europe do not "connect-through" Venice to other flights leaving Venice. Barcelona gets more of that, but not as much as say Amsterdam, London or Paris.

The notion that all cheap flights utilize airports located in the "middle of nowhere" is quite untrue. Not only are there many cheap flights into Amsterdam's main airport, or Munich. Milan and Barcelona, it also the case that to get from Treviso airport to Venice is really quite simple, or from Pisa to le Cinque Terre or Florence, etc.

<<some of the budget airlines have long and VERY strict check in times.>> Some of the budget airlines do not in fact have any check in desks at the airport. You have to check in online. If you have luggage to check in, you can use bag drop and very often you need to use the kiosk to print out the luggage tag and tag your own bag.

The last time I went thru JFK (October last year), I used the automated passport control kiosk and got thru immigration in minutes.

When flying into major airports in the US, both immigration AND customs are annoying and time-consuming ordeals.

We recently tried to use the automatic kiosks in Atlanta, where we were transit passengers. I was approved, but my husband was red-flagged back to the regular immigration line, which was by then about 30% longer than it had been when we got to the immigration hall. So it wasted a lot of time for us.

Most of the airports I know in Italy are well connected to their city centers by public transportation. That's certainly true also in Madrid, Paris, Brussels, Munich, and Amsterdam. I'm sure I'm forgetting some. Rome's Fiumicino airport has direct trains not only into Rome, but also to Florence, and Venice. If people are taking private cars or taxis to these airports, I don't know why they're doing it.

Thank you bvlenci for saying what i was trying to say better than i did. customs and immigration- getting into the US is often a long arduous process. I guess i'm trying to guess, once we land in , say barcelona, how long it will take to get out of the airport so we can enjoy the city.

Your question is a little bit like asking about the weather. Nobody can really give you a precise answer for the day and time you travel. I live in Europe and I fly around Europe all the time. Most of the time, I spend about 5 minutes or less waiting in lines to show my passport when required. But if I arrive at an airport that is experiencing problems of some sort, or other people are being ushered ahead of me for some reason, then that's the way it is. Have to roll with it.

If in the back of your mind you are thinking it just isn't worth it to you to get a flight to Barcelona if it means you will be standing in line for X hours just waiting to get to the city, I think the chances of your waiting more than 20 minutes at most are pretty slim. And once you are out of the airport, it is really easy and fairly quick to get right into the city by train or taxi.

But if something unexpected happens, you are going to have to roll with it or decide in advance you'd rather not take the chance.

Of course i understand no one can predict exactly what the wait will be, but i am asking, like most questions on these sites, generally speaking, what is it like. I would never tell someone their wait at JFK through immigration and customs might be 20 minutes bc I know it will be much longer than that- i was hoping to get an idea of generally speaking what it is like. Thank you.

It's always easier and often quicker to take a train over a plane to all but the most hard-to-reach areas. Barcelona is to some extent one of those hard-to-reach areas, but it's still only 6.5 pleasant hours by fast train, leaving and arriving within the cities. Flying will take you almost as long and be a miserable experience.

Given the current state of affairs, I would expect flying out of Paris is going to take longer than in the past.

Emcash is traveling out of London. Taking a train will only be faster if he is going to Paris or Brussels.
Even from Antwerp, where I live, it's faster to fly to London than take the train.

There is no immigration between Schengen countries; flying between them is as easy as flying between states in the USA.

However the UK is not a Schengen country; they will ask to see your passport. But lines are generally very short at most airports. Returning to London Heathrow, there may be a line since it's such a large airport.

If you check in online and have only handluggage, you really do not need to be at the airport more than an hour in advance. Strict check-in times for some airlines are for those who still need to check in, or who have luggage to check. With handluggage and boarding pass there's only security.

I take trains and planes .. all the time when in Europe. I do not think 6.5 hours on a train is pleasant at all.. my limit was 5 hours and 50 minutes .. after 6 hours I would fly.. period.

I have used Vueling, Ryanair, and Easyjet .. and all the airports we used were convenient ones.. ( this is not always the case.. you do have do some homework,, ie.. do NOT fly Ryanair to Paris they use Beauvais.. which sucks for commuting into city ).. but

For Paris to London I would not consider flying.. I would take the Eurostar( correct name of the train you would like to book) ..
Its a pleasant 2.5 hours,, city center to city center.

Ps the whole arrival at airports/customs/immigration thing.. my personal luck has been never more then 20 or so minutes.. depends if luggage gets held up , which for us has only done so once, in Marjorrca , took like an hour ! but that has never been the norm.

I find most flying pleasant in Europe.

I find the trains great too.. but not for long trips.. Paris to Nice was my limit.

The Eurostar is a wonderful way to visit two cities efficiently. The sooner you book the tickets the better deals can be had.

<<We recently tried to use the automatic kiosks in Atlanta, where we were transit passengers. I was approved, but my husband was red-flagged.>> It would be useful to know the reason was he red-flagged. Not everyone can use the automated kiosks. If you are non US and have an ESTA and have been to the US before on the ESTA program, then you can use the kiosk. Immigration in my case was very quick, but sadly customs was a nightmare and that's why US travellers keep asking about how it takes to get thru customs as they imagine it might be like that everywhere else.

If flights are booked far enough in advance, the price of the scheduled airlines can be the same or lower than low cost carriers and the benefit is that you don't fly to/from some airport in the middle of nowhere.

How long immigration will take also depends on your nationality. Within Schengen there are no border checks, but entering non-Schengen E.U. countries like the U.K., a U.S. citizen, for example, will have to complete a landing card and answer the usual immigration questions. The same may be true for a U.S. citizen entering Schengen. An E.U. citizen making the same journey would only have to show a passport or i.d. card.

Of course, since most of the other passengers will be European, that can sometimes make little difference in terms of waiting time. There are separate queues for each category, but the problem can be someone in front of you who is having difficulties with the procedure.

>>the problem can be someone in front of you who is having difficulties with the procedure.<<

I think there's a Parkinson's Law of queues that says the person actually at the counter always makes their business twice as complicated as any reasonable person needs it to be (see Post Offices, passim)

Thank you all - all very helpful and informative answers.
sandralist, i did get your answer- i was simply making the point that I was asking for a "generally speaking" answer and used the 20 min jfk as an example. Thank you for your help. I do appreciate it.